Friday, November 27, 2009

New Dawn - An Easy Climbing Rose, Not a Stephanie Meyer Book

I've heard it a thousand times - "Roses are too fussy!" "I can't grow roses." "Roses don't like me." Pshaw. Roses like you fine, you just need to find the ones best suited for your temperment and your situation.

I am not a fussy gardener. You have to be tough to survive in my yard and handle minimal watering, rabbits, chipmunks, and the occasional neighborhood cat. Any rose has to be durable to live in my patch of ground. No tea roses for me, thank you. I don't need the hassle. So, I have shrub roses and the climber New Dawn.

I live in a 1929 Sears catalog kit house and so I tend to plant plants that are in keeping with the period of the house. We have a soft spot for heirlooms. My husband loves to plant heirloom veggies and I like heirloom flowers. New Dawn was introduced ni 1930 and is a vigorous climbing rose with dark green leaves and pale pink flowers. It is a sporadic rebloomer. It's big show is in May and then we get a flower here and there before a last hurrah in October. And I'm not kidding on the vigorous part. This baby will do about eight feet a year if not more. I cut it to the ground every three to four years so it doesn't eat the house. This year was not a good year for roses with our wet spring, and wacky wet/dry, hot/cold spells. Still my New Dawns did pretty well. They also don't tend to get black spot or mildew or any of the myriad rose diseases. They even get nice rose hips for winter!

This is the last flower on one of my two the New Dawns, taken today. Isn't it lovely? Fragrant, too.